No pain, no gain

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST. 4: THE DREAM MASTER

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The Freddy Krueger craze in the late 1980's grew to astronomical proportions, and "Nightmare on Elm Street 4" proved to be no exception in continuing the popularity of that talon-gloved fella. It was, up until 2003's "Freddy vs. Jason," the biggest hit of the series. There were more spectacular deaths, more Freddy one-liners, and there was Sinead O'Connor's hit song "I Want Your (Hands on Me)" (not to mention a subtle use of Blondie's "Rip Her to Shreds"). "Nightmare 4" is also the second best of the series and definitely the most imaginative.

The film starts with the three surviving Elm Street kids brought together into a nightmare thanks to the concerned Kristen (played this time by singer Tuesday Knight, replacing Patricia Arquette from "Nightmare 3"). Comedian Ken Sagoes (reprising his role as Kincaid from Part 3) inadvertently resurrects Freddy in a car lot with the help of his dog Jason and some flaming urine (!) Now Freddy (Robert Englund) kills the remaining Elm Street kids and is after some fresh blood, or else the movie would be over. Enter the Carrie-like Alice (Lisa Wilcox) who has premonitions and walks around in a trance. She's the only one who can destroy Freddy, and since he kills most of her friends, she acquires their strengths and becomes a formidable opponent for the big showdown in an abandoned church.

It is obvious that the series began to have less and less of the dark atmosphere of the Wes Craven original, and more of Freddy's demented criminal acting as a jokester. Still, this one is creatively designed and imaginatively directed by Renny Harlin ("Die Hard 2"). Check out the best scene in the film: Alice walks into a theatre showing "Reefer Madness" and dreams that she floats into the movie-within-the-movie, "Purple Rose of Cairo"-style. There she finds a nearly-abandoned diner where Freddy serves "Soul Pizza". It is crude and gross but tempered with enough humor and horror to make it scary. Added to that are a weightlifter who transforms into a cockroach; Freddy sucking face with an asthmatic student; a proper "Jaws" parody; an incredible junkyard sequence where the camera pulls back to reveal a planet full of junkyards, and so much more.

The movie is strictly by-the-numbers and, although not as creepy as Number 3, it is still the most visually enthralling of the entire series. Lisa Wilcox, who reprised her role in "Nightmare 5," brings us a vulnerable, timid strong-willed heroine who has her eye on a jock ("One major hunk") and on saving her friends from this demonic dream stalker. She refuses to forget the friends she lost (in a touching scene, she views a videotape of them goofing off), and it is emotional scenes of that nature that make us care. These are real teenage victims whom we are asked to identify with, hardly the anonymous variety that are featured in most slasher pictures. "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4" also boasts an ending that should have ended the series for good. Freddy kept coming back because you can't keep a child-murdering janitor down for too long.